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THE   ISTHMIAN    CANAL. 


AN    ADDRESS    BY 

MR.  GEORGE  S.  MORISON 

BEFORE 

THE  COMMERCIAL  CLUB  OF  CHICAGO 

JANUARY  25,  1902 


Mr.   President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Commercial  Club  : 

History  has  been  making  itself  so  fast  in  the  last  two  or  three 
weeks  that  I  had  somewhat  changed  my  ideas  as  to  what  I  had 
better  say.  I  had  determined  to  devote  nearly  my  whole  time  to 
a  description  of  the  actual  conditions  on  the  Isthmus,  and  to  giving 
reasons  why  the  commission  had  reached  some  of  the  conclusions 
which  it  has.  The  remarks  just  made  by  my  friend  Ripley  seem  to 
make  it  important  that  I  should  first  say  a  word  or  two  in  a  different 
direction. 

The  first  thing  that  I  will  call  your  attention  to  is  the  fact  that 
although  the  old  canals  in  America  have  almost  all  passed  out  of 
use,  there  has  never  been  a  time  when  canal  construction  has  been 
more  active  in  Europe  than  it  is  to-day,  and  there  has  never  been  a 
time  when  it  has  been  considered  as  important  a  part  of  the  trans- 
portation system  of  European  countries.  I  do  not  know  what  the 
statistics  are,  but  we  all  know  that  Paris  is  practically  an  inland  city; 
it  is  a  long  way  from  the  sea,  and  yet  I  feel  perfectly  certain  that 
a  good  deal  more  than  half  the  food  and  other  supplies  that,  are 
consumed  in  Paris  are  practically  brought  in  by  canal,  either  by  local 
canals,  of  which  France  has  a  very  extensive  system,  or  by  boats 
of  the  canal  class  on  the  Seine.  This  is  a  fact  which  should  not 
be  forgotten. 

But  the  principal  feature  of  the  Isthmian  canal,  I  think,  may  be 
said  to  be  that  it  is  not  a  canal  in  the  usual  sense.  It  is  built,  not  to 
make  canal  navigation,  not  to  increase  navigation,  but  to  reduce 
navigation.  It  is  the  formation  of  a  short  strait  connecting  two 
oceans.  We  have  in  this  neighborhood  another  instance  precisely 
like  it,  of  a  short  canal  connecting  two  seas,  Lake  Superior  and 
Lake  Huron,  which  now  carries  the  heaviest  tonnage  that  any  canal 
ever  has  carried  in  the  world  ;  and  it  carries  it,  not  because  it  is  a 
canal,  but  in  spite  of  its  being  a  canal.  It  carries  it  because  it  is 
the  only  way  of  getting  from  one  lake  to  the  other. 


If  you  will  study  the  geography  of  the  world,  you  will  see  that 
there  is  a  very  marked  difference  in  the  formation  of  the  two  con- 
tinents. The  Eastern  Continent  is  broad  from  east  to  west  ;  the 
Western  Continent  is  long  from  north  to  south*.  The  Eastern  Con- 
tinent has  been  completely  circumnavigated.  The  passage  around 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  is  a  very  easy  passage,  frequently  made. 
The  Western  Continent  has  never  been  circumnavigated,  and  al- 
though the  dream  of  a  northeast  passage  has  been  a  most  enticing 
thing  for  centuries,  it  has  had  to  be  given  up.  Cape  Horn  is  prac- 
tically 20  degrees  farther  south  than  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Its 
passage  is  a  very  difficult  one,  especially  in  the  winter  season.  The 
attraction  of  the  Isthmian  canal  is  that  it  will  avoid  the  necessity  of 
circumnavigating  this  continent.  In  spite  of  its  being  a  canal  it  will 
make  ocean  navigation  a  great  deal  easier  than  it  is  now.  The  Suez 
canal  has  done  this  for  the  other  continent,  where  the  difficulties  of 
getting  around  the  continent  were  very  much  less.  It  remains  to  be 
seen  what  a  canal  across  the  American  Isthmus  will  do.  But  its 
position  and  its  importance  is  not  because  it  is  a  canal,  but  in  spite 
of  its  being  a  canal  ;  a  strait  20  miles  wide  would  be  a  great  deal 
better,  but  we  cannot  make  it. 

This  subject  of  Isthmian  transit  is  as  old  as  any  knowledge  of 
the  continent.  The  first  dream  of  Columbus  was  to  get  a  westward 
course  to  the  Orient.  He  thought  he  had  done  it.  He  had  not. 
The  next  dream  actually  accomplished  it.  Magellan  found  the 
straits,  and  on  the  boldest  voyage  that  any  navigator  ever  made,  he 
crossed  the  Pacific  Ocean,  not  knowing  that  only  a  short  distance 
beyond  these  straits  was  the  end  of  the  land,  which  he  might  have 
gone  around. 

Of  late  years  three  different  conditions  of  things  have  called 
special  attention  to  Isthmian  transit.  The  first  of  these  was  the 
discovery  of  gold  in  California  ;  that  was  a  little  more  than  fifty 
years  ago.  It  was  at  that  time  that  the  first  surveys  of  any  import- 
ance were  made  for  lines  across  the  Isthmus.  The  second  was  the 
Suez  canal  ;  when  that  was  built,  and  was  a  success,  its  promoters 
felt  that  they  wanted  to  do  the  same  thing  again  ;  that  it  must  be 
done  by  some  one,  and  they  would  do  it  themselves  ;  they  tried  and 
they  failed.  They  failed  for  other  reasons  than  those  for  which 
they  should  have  failed,  but  it  was  a  failure;  that  was  about  2«> 
years  ago.  The  next  thing  which  called  attention  to  it  was  the 
voyage  of  the  Oregon,  one  of  the  most  graphic  events  in  the  war 
with  Spain  ;  the  voyage  of  the  Oregon  was  made  through  the  straits 
of  Magellan  ;  it  called  everybody's  attention  to  the  fact  that  we 
could  not  get  through  the  Isthmus. 

In  these  three  different  periods  a  great  change  has  taken  place 
in  the  merchant  marine.  At  the  time  the  first  surveys  were  made 


for  the  Nicaragua  canal,  the  first  that  were  good  for  anything,  by 
Col.  Chilcls,  about  fifty  years  ago,  there  were  only  about  260  steam 
vessels  in  the  world,  of  which  only  fifteen  drew  more  than  17  feet  ; 
that  was  the  size  of  ship  which  he  made  his  plans  for.  At  the 
time  that  work  on  the  Panama  canal  was  begun  in  1882,  a  bottom 
width  of  about  70  feet  and  a  depth  of  29^  feet,  those  being  the 
dimensions  which  had  been  adopted  then  on  the  Suez  canal,  though 
larger  than  the  original  dimensions,  were  considered  ample.  The 
bottom  width  of  the  canal  was  less  than  the  beam  of  some  warships 
which  are  now  building.  One  steamship  company  alone  in  nine 
months  sent  out  from  New  York  City  forty  ships  drawing  over 
thirty  feet. 

We  are  particularly  familiar  here  with  the  great  change  which 
has  taken  place  in  railroad  rolling  stock,  and  the  enormous  differ- 
ence in  trainloads.  The  present  economical  railroad  transportation 
is  clue  to  heavy  locomotives,  to  heavy  rails  which  carry  them,  and 
to  cars  which  can  carry  heavy  loads  themselves.  Instead  of  cars 
carrying  ten  tons,  as  we  had  thirty  years  ago,  we  have  plenty 
of  cars  carrying  fifty  tons,  and  they  are  sometimes  loaded  to  sixty. 
The  same  thing  has  taken  place  on  the  ocean.  There  are  fleets  of 
steamers  crossing  the  Atlantic  which  carry  12,000  tons  of  cargo. 
There  is  at  least  one  ship  running  to  New  York,  and  there  are  others 
building,  which,  when  fully  loaded,  would  carry  20,000  tons  of  cargo. 
There  is  a  matter  which  leads  to  a  great  deal  of  confusion  in  regard 
to  the  size  of  both  ordinary  merchant  ships  and  battle  ships.  There 
are  four  different  methods  of  measuring  a  ship.  There  is  the  actual 
displacement,  which  is  the  way  naval  ships  are  measured  ;  there  is 
the  gross  tonnage,  which  is  an  arbitrary  rule  established  by  law  ; 
there  is  the  net  tonnage,  which  is  a  reduction  from  the  gross  tonnage 
by  an  arbitrary  rule  established  by  law,  and  there  is  the  carrying 
capacity  ;  all  four  are  different.  There  are  several  merchant  ships 
now  on  the  ocean  whose  actual  displacement  if  fully  loaded  would 
be  between  30,000  and  40,000  tons.  I  have  not  seen  the  displace- 
ment scale  of  the  Celtic,  but  it  must  be  close  to  40,000  tons.  The 
Oceanic  runs  up  to  nearly  32,000  tons  when  fully  loaded. 

It  is  these  conditions,  these  increased  dimensions,  which  have 
rendered  ocean  transportation  as  economical  as  it  is.  We  have 
seen  the  same  thing  in  this  country.  We  have  had  railroads 
reducing  their  cost  of  transportation,  we  have  had  ocean  steamers 
reducing  their  cost,  and  lake  steamers  have  reduced  it  ;  the 
one  trouble  has  been  on  the  Mississippi  River  and  its  tributaries, 
which  have  not  been  able  to  reduce  it  ;  and  what  has  been  the  result? 
The  railroads  have  taken  all  the  transportation  away  from  the  rivers 
except  that  class  which  can  be  carried  without  power,  cargoes  of 
coal  and  grain  which  can  be  taken  down  the  Mississippi  River 


because  the  current  of  the  Mississippi  River  takes  them  down  ;  but 
no  considerable  amount  of  freight  can  be  brought  back. 

I  have  spent  more  time  on  this  point  than  I  had  intended  to  ; 
but  I  wanted  to  speak  of  it  particularly,  because  the  route  across 
the  Isthmus  which  was  best  adapted  to  the  light  transportation  of 
the  past  may  be  very  poorly  adapted  to  the  transportation  of  the 
future. 

The  Nicaragua  route  has  been  favored,  especially  in  America, 
for  a  great  many  years.  Lake  Nicaragua  itself  is  but  12  miles  from 
the  Pacific,  and  the  Continental  Divide  is  between  the  lake  and  the 
Pacific.  The  drainage  of  the  lake  is  into  the  Atlantic,  Near  the 
western  end  of  Lake  Nicaragua  is  the  old  City  of  Granada.  In 
early  times  ships  used  to  sail  from  Spain  to  Granada.  They  passed 
up  the  San  Juan  River,  landed  their  cargoes  at  Granada,  took  their 
return  cargoes  and  went  back.  I  do  not  know  how  big  those  ships 
were,  but  they  probably  were  about  the  same  dimensions  as  the 
caravels  which  we  saw  here  at  the  World's  Fair  a  few  years  ago. 

The  transit  company  which  operated  a  line  from  New  York  to 
San  Francisco  by  way  of  Lake  Nicaragua  had  steamers  of  about  the 
size  that  then  crossed  the  Atlantic.  They  would  sail  from  New 
York,  anchor  in  Greytown  harbor,  which  was  then  a  good  harbor, 
although  it  has  now  disappeared,  would  transfer  the  passengers  to 
river  boats  that  came  alongside.  The  river  boat  would  go  up  the 
San  Juan  river  to  Castillo,  where  its  passengers  would  get  out  and 
walk  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  around  some  rapids,  take  another 
boat  which  took  them  to  the  lake  and  across  the  lake  and  landed 
them  within  12  miles  of  the  Pacific,  where  a  good  stage  road  would 
take  them  in  two  hours  to  San  Juan  del  Sur,  where  a  steamer  would 
be  waiting  for  them.  It  seemed  as  if  the  San  Juan  river  and  Lake 
Nicaragua  were  an  extension  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  that  all  that 
had  to  be  done  was  to  build  a  short  canal  between  the  lake  and  the 
Pacific  and  to  improve  the  navigation  of  the  river.  The  passage 
across  this  Divide  was  exceptionally  easy.  The  stage  road  took  the 
shortest  route.  The  canal  line  would  be  about  five  miles  longer, 
but  the  summit  was  but  fifty  feet  above  the  lake,  and  every- 
thing was  favorable  to  the  construction  of  a  canal.  The  one  thing 
which  was  not  seen  at  first,  and  which  meant  a  great  deal,  but  which 
means  a  great  deal  more  now  than  it  did  then,  was  the  fact  that  the 
San  Juan  River  was  but  100  miles  long,  and  100  feet  higher  at  one 
end  than  at  the  other.  It  is  a  big  river  ;  it  is  as  big  as  the  Mississippi 
is  at  Dubuque.  It  looks  like  a  river  which  could  easily  be  improved. 
But  no  river  can  have  a  fall  of  one  foot  to  the  mile  without  having 
very  serious  obstructions  in  it  to  navigation.  In  the  upper  half  of 
the  river  those  obstructions  are  rocks  ;  in  the  lower  half  they  are 
sand  bars.  The  first  plan,  that  of  Col,  Childs'  which  was  carefully 


worked  out,  contemplated  an  extreme  depth  of  17  feet,  a  series  of 
dams  of  small  height,  and  of  locks  of  small  lift.  It  was  the  old-fash- 
ioned method  of  slack  water  navigation.  All  the  dams  in  the  lower 
portion  of  the  river  had  to  be  founded  on  sand,  and  so  they  could  not 
be  high.  While  it  might  have  been  possible  to  maintain  a  17  foot 
channel,  it  would  not  have  been  possible  to  maintain  a  35  foot 
channel 

Furthermore,  midway  between  Lake  Nicaragua  and  the  sea,  the 
San  Juan  River,  which  is  the  drainage  of  Lake  Nicaragua,  is  joined 
by  the  San  Carlos,  a  river  coming  down  from  the  mountains,  with- 
out having  the  advantage  of  the  settling  basin  of  a  lake,  which  fills 
the  lower  river  with  sand  bars  and  makes  it  something  like  the 
Platte.  Those  were  the  physical  difficulties,  but  it  was  a  very 
attractive  line. 

During  the  next  fifteen  years,  the  first  change  took  place. 
Greytown  harbor  disappeared,  and  the  last  steamer  that  came  to 
Greytown  landed  its  passengers  outside  the  bar,  where  they  were 
brought  in  by  small  boats  and  taken  up  the  river. 

The  difficulty  of  improving  the  San  Juan  River  itself  has  become 
manifest.  Practically,  it  cannot  be  done  in  the  lower  section  of 
the  river  where  it  is  full  of  sand  bars  ;  when  the  Maritime  Canal 
Company  was  organized  a  dozen  years  ago,  and  made  its  plans 
for  work  there,  it  recognized  this  fact  and  abandoned  the  lower 
end  of  the  San  Juan  River.  The  scheme  contemplated  building 
a  dam  across  the  river  which  would  carry  the  level  of  the  lake 
down  half  way  to  the  sea,  extending  that  lake  out  between  two 
rows  of  hills  in  a  lateral  valley  to  within  eight  miles  of  the  Carribean, 
and  then  locking  down  into  that  sea  Further  examinations  showed 
two  very  serious  difficulties  in  the  way  of  carrying  out  the  plan. 
The  first  of  those  was  that  no  foundations  could  be  found  for  the  dam. 
The  second  was  that  instead  of  two  ranges  of  hills,  with  a  valley 
between,  there  was  but  one  range.  There  were  some  isolated  hills 
on  the  other  side,  but  they  had  to  be  connected  with  a  series  of  very 
high  and  very  insecure  embankment.  That  was  the  position,  and 
that  was  the  plan  five  years  ago. 

When  the  Nicaragua  Canal  Commission  was  appointed,  it  was 
charged  only  with  an  examination  of  the  Nicaragua  location,  and  it 
made  more  complete  surveys,  though  not  by  any  means  as  complete 
as  have  now  been  made.  The  plan  was  abandoned.  They  selected 
another  site  for  the  dam  and  planned  a  canal  nearly  fifty  miles  long 
from  the  San  Juan  to  the  sea. 

The  plans  of  the  present  Commission  are  on  the  same  lines, 
although  the  details  have  been  very  much  improved.  A  better  site 
has  been  found  for  the  dam  ;  it  is  further  up  stream,  and  it  has  a 
better  bottom.  The  canal  between  the  improved  San  Juan  and  the 


sea  continues  a  portion  of  the  scheme.  It  is  this  problem  of 
constructing  a  canal  nearly  fifty  miles  long  between  the  San  Juan 
River  and  the  ocean,  not  across  the  summit,  but  parallel  to  a  river 
which  cannot  be  made  navigable,  which  has  led  to  the  increase  in 
the  estimates,  and  the  increase  in  the  apparent  difficulties  of  the 
Nicaragua  line. 

If  we  assume  this  canal  completed,  a  ship  passing  through  the 
Nicaragua  canal  would  enter  Greytown  harbor,  which  does  not  now 
exist,  but  which  will  have  to  be  made,  and  would  then  travel  46 
miles  through  a  canal  without  interruption  until  it  reaches  the  San 
Juan  River  at  the  elevation  of  the  lake.  In  that  distance  it  has  to 
pass  through  four  locks,  and  the  canal  itself  is  46  miles  long.  Hav- 
ing entered  the  San  Juan  River,  it  would  follow  that  river  which 
would  then  be  abundantly  deep  ;  but  it  is  crooked,  so  crooked  in 
fact,  that  some  of  the  sharp  bends  would  be  cut  off  by  short  pieces 
of  canal  ;  it  has  to  follow  that  river  50  miles  to  the  lake.  It  is  100 
miles  in  round  figures  from  the  Carribean  Sea  to  Lake  Nicaragua. 
Lake  Nicaragua  is  a  beautiful  sheet  of  water.  It  is  surrounded  by 
high  hills,  and  there  are  two  mountains,  volcanoes,  which  rise  about 
a  mile,  right  out  of  the  lake  itself.  The  navigable  line  would  be  for 
70  miles  through  the  lake,  of  which  perhaps  one-third  would  be  in 
comparatively  shallow  water,  where  the  channel  has  to  be  deepened, 
and  the  balance  in  deep  water,  which  extends  it  to  the  west  shore 
of  the  lake.  Leaving  the  lake,  a  canal  a  little  over  17  miles  long 
with  four  locks  would  take  the  ship  down  to  the  Pacific,  where,  at 
present  there  is  no  harbor,  but  where  an  artificial  harbor  must  be 
made.  The  total  course  of  navigation  consists,  then,  of  about  65 
miles  of  canal,  of  50  miles  of  navigable  river,  with  enough  short 
pieces- of  canal  to  bring  the  canal  length  up  to  about  75  miles,  and 
70  miles  of  lake  navigation,  a  total  of  about  185  miles.  This  can  be 
passed  according  to  the  calculations  made  by  a  member  of  the 
Commission,  by  a  fairly  large  ship  in  about  33  hours.  The  speed  at 
which  a  ship  would  go  through  the  canal  would  be  practically 
independent  of  its  own  power.  A  fast  ship  must  go  just  about  as 
slowly  as  a  slow  ship.  To  pass  through  in  that  time  is  perfectly  prac- 
ticable, provided  everything  is  favorable  to  operating  by  night. 
Smaller  ships  would  undoubtedly  travel  by  night  ;  whether  the 
largest  ships  would,  is  a  question  that  only  experience  can  settle. 

The  climate  on  the  west  side  of  the  lake  is  very  good  for  a 
tropical  climate.  The  climate  on  the  east  side  is  one  of  the  worst 
in  the  world.  The  rainfall  at  Greytown  averages  about  240  inches 
per  year.  The  portion  of  the  line  through  which  the  canal  proper 
would  be  built,  the  first  50  miles  between  Greytown  and  the  San 
Juan,  is  nearly  as  rainy  as  Greytown  itself.  It  is  a  country  prac- 
tically with  one  wet  season  which  lasts  two  years,  doubling  over  the 
one  that  preceded  it. 

As  you  go  up  the  river,  the  rainfall  decreases  until  you  reach  the 
lake,  where  there  is  still  a  wet  climate  ;  when  you  cross  the  lake 
you  come  to  one  which  is  rather  dry.  The  principal  difficulty  with 
Nicaragua  is  just  where  at  first  sight  you  would  not  expect  to  find 
it.  It  is  between  the  river  and  the  Atlantic.  It  is  through  the 
swamp,  whose  existence  is  largely  due  to  the  tremendous  rainfall. 

The  principal  problems  to  be  met  in  the  construction  of  the 
Nicaragua  canal  are  the  artificial  harbors,  which  do  not  present 


unusual  difficulties,  but  they  must  be  made  before  much  work  can 
be  done  ;  the  fifty  miles  of  canal  mostly  through  the  swamp,  but 
the  upper  portion  of  which  involves  some  extremely  heavy  excava- 
tion, and  finally  the  regulation  of  the  lake.  Lake  Nicaragua 
furnishes  an  indefinite  amount  of  water  for  a  summit  level  supply. 
It  furnishes  almost  too  much  water.  It  is  so  great  a  supply  that  the 
water  used  by  the  canal  is  immaterial  in  proportion  to  that  required 
for  evaporation.  The  difficulties  lie  in  keeping  the  lake  within 
reasonable  limits,  holding  it  high  enough  at  the  end  of  each  wet 
season  to  prevent  evaporation  bringing  it  too  low  at  the  end  of  the 
dry  season  ;  this  difficulty  will  be  better  understood  when  it  is 
remembered  that  there  have  been  times,  when  two  dry  seasons  had 
a  comparatively  dry  wet  season  between  them,  when  for  1 8  months 
the  amount  of  evaporation  exceeded  the  entire  inflow  into  the  canal. 
This  regulation  can  be  done.  It  has  been  worked  out  in  a  perfectly 
satisfactory  way.  The  defect  about  it  is  that  it  will  require  constant 
and  careful  watching.  The  discharge  of  the  river  is  large.  It  may 
possibly  run  up  as  high  as  200,000  cubic  feet  a  second  ;  but  it  would 
be  regulated  artificially  by  a  system  of  sluices,  which  must  be  man- 
aged, closed  and  opened  at  the  right  times.  This  is  nothing  that 
has  not  been  done  successfully  elsewhere.  But  I  think  that  there 
is  no  doubt  to-day  that  if  we  had  the  same  problem  before  us  that 
we  had  50  years  ago,  and  certainly  if  we  had  the  one  that  we  had 
a  hundred  years  ago,  to  supply  a  waterway  by  which  small  vessels 
could  go  from  ocean  to  ocean,  Nicaragua  would  be  the  best  route. 

At  Panama  the  situation  is  entirely  different.  The  two  oceans 
are  only  a  little  more  than  30  miles  apart  in  a  straight  line  There 
is  no  intermediate  navigation,  unless  you  can  call  the  old  canoe 
navigation  of  the  Chagres  River,  navigated  by  boats  drawing 
perhaps  a  foot,  navigation.  The  advantage  of  this  location  is  that 
it  is  the  only  place  where  the  oceans  approach  near  together,  and 
the  summit  is  within  reasonable  height.  The  summit  of  Nicaragua, 
the  lowest  known,  is  about  150  feet  above  tide  water.  The  summit 
at  Panama  at  the  lowest  point,  is  a  little  less  than  300  feet.  On  the 
line  of  the  canal  it  is  somewhat  more  than  300.  There  are  other 
points  on  the  Isthmus,  east  of  Panama,  where  the  width  of  the 
Isthmus  is  less  than  at  Panama,  but  a  careful  examination  along  the 
line  of  the  whole  backbone  shows  that  no  place  can  be  found  where 
the  height  of  the  ridge  is  not  more  than  double  what  it  is  at  Panama. 
There  is  practically  no  place  where  the  Isthmus  can  be  crossed, 
except  at  Nicaragua  and  Panama  without  the  use  of  a  tunnel;  and 
while  some  people  may  not  hesitate  to  send  ships  through  a  tunnel, 
I  do. 

At  Panama  the  Divide  is  about  10  miles  from  the  Pacific.  The 
actual  length  of  the  canal  from  shore  to  shore  is  a  little  more  than 
forty  miles  The  actual  length  from  deep  water  to  deep  water  is 
about  49  miles.  There  are  two  problems  which  have  been  the 
difficult  ones  at  Panama.  One  is  the  Culebra  cut,  the  other  is  the 
Chagres  River. 

When  the  French  company  began  its  work  there,  its  people 
went  at  it  with  a  magnificent  and  heroic  ignorance.  They  proposed 
to  cut  a  sea  level  canal,  and  to  consider  what  they  would  do  with 
other  things  afterwards.  They  located  their  line  up  the  valley  of 
the  Chagres  for  about1  30  miles,  and  then  across  the  Divide  in  the 


direction  of  the  Pacific.  They  afterwards  went  into  various  schemes 
for  keeping  the  Chagres  River  out  of  the  canal;  but  nothing  was 
ever  done.  The  Chagres  is  a  tropical  mountain  stream.  It  has  an 
ample  supply  of  water  for  the  summit  level  of  any  canal,  except  for 
about  three  months  in  the  year.  During  three  months  of  -the  dry 
season  its  discharge  may  get  as  low  as  300  feet  or  thereabouts  per 
second.  It  looks  as  if  it  had  dried  up.  During  the  greater  part  of 
the  year,  it  is  a  river  with  a  fair  supply  of  water  and  a  good  stream. 
Once  in  a  while,  however  there  comes  a  tremendous  flood.  It  is 
possible  that  the  largest  floods  in  the  Chagres  are  as  big  as  the 
largest  floods  in  the  San  Juan>  but  that  does  not  seem  probable 
Those  floods  are  like  the  floods  that  we  sometimes  see  in  this  part 
of  the  country  in  the  rivers  in  the  southern  part  of  this  State.  They 
are  floods  which  come  from  violent  rains;  they  do  a  lot  of  mischief, 
and  before  you  know  it  they  are  gone.  You  have  seen  plenty  of 
those.  The  problem  of  the  control  of  the  Chagres  is  to  prevent 
those  floods  doing  any  harm.  That  problem  has  been  perfectly 
solved  by  our  Commission. 

The  first  thing  is  to  build  a  dam  across  the  Chagres  and  convert 
nearly  20  miles  of  the  river  into  a  lake,  that  lake  to  be  of  such  dimen- 
sions that  no  flood  will  produce  a  current  in  it  which  would  do  any  harm. 
The  surveys  and  examinations  show  that  this  is  perfectly  feasible; 
such  a  lake  will  form  the  summit  level  of  the  canal  at  an  elevation 
varying  between  85  and  90  feet,  or  about  13  feet  lower  than  Lake 
Nicaragua,  in  which  no  current  would  be  strong  enough  to  do  any 
harm,  and  which  would  ordinarily  be  a  perfectly  quiet  lake  in  which 
navigation  would  be  as  easy  as  in  Lake  Nicaragua.  A  location  has 
also  been  found  at  some  distance  from  the  Chagres  where  a  masonry 
spill-way  can  be  built,  over  which  the  lake  will  discharge  in  flood 
times,  and  the  rate  at  which  it  would  be  discharged  can  be  easily 
calculated.  It  is  not  probable  that  the  flood  water  over  that  spill- 
way would  ever  be  over  five  feet  high,  and  the  water  can  be  taken 
from  that  spill-way  to  the  sea  without  coming  into  the  canal  in  the 
whole  distance.  I  have  seldom  seen  a  problem  more  satisfactorily 
solved  than  this  has  been.  Furthermore,  the  lake  is  to  be  large 
enough  to  supply,  acting  as  a  reservoir,  the  water  needed  for  the 
summit  level  during  the  dry  season  when  the  river  does  not  furnish 
enough.  The  whole  solution,  though  an  artificial  one,  is  absolutely 
simple,  and  it  will  be  entirely  automatic  when  done. 

When  this  is  completed,  a  ship  entering  the  Panama  canal  will 
navigate  the  canal  for  17  miles  at  the  level  of  the  sea.  Then  by  a 
flight  of  two  locks,  it  passes  up  into  this  lake,  called  "Lake  Bohio;" 
it  will  not  pass  through  the  entire  length  of  the  lake,  but  after 
passing  through  13  miles  it  will  turn  off  towards  the  south  and  go 
through  the  Culebra  cut  on  the  original  French  location. 

This  cut  is  about  8  miles  long;  it  is  heavy  work  for  about  7  of 
those  8  miles;  but  it  is  exceptionally  heavy  only  for  one.  The  cut 
will  be  about  280  feet  deep,  and  the  work  remaining  to  take  out  of 
it  is  about  40,000,000  cubic  yards.  That  has  been  one  of  the  bug- 
bears of  the  Panama  Canal. 

The  new  French  company,  since  the  failure  of  the  old  one,  has 
excavated  a  narrow  slice  in  this  cut,  for  more  than  two-thirds  its 
depth,  and  has  shown  what  the  material  is.  It  reminded  me  very 
much  of  material  that  I  had  taken  out  mvself  in  North  Dakota.  It 


is  a  very  hard  clay  which  costs  as  much  to  work  perhaps  as  rock,  but 
which  weathers  more  or  less  when  it  is  exposed  But  it  is  a  per- 
fectly stable  material,  and  the  troubles  which  have  been  reported  of 
sliding  soil,  etc.,  are  only  on  the  surface  well  above  anything 
remaining  to  be  done. 

Passing  through  this  8  miles  of  cut  a  ship  would  pass  down  a 
double  flight  of  locks  to  a  lower  level,  go  one  mile  on  this  lower 
level,  pass  through  another  lock  of  varying  lift  according  to  the  tide, 
and  then  in  about  six  miles  more  would  reach  the  line  of  the  shore, 
and  after  four  miles  more  in  an  excavated  channel  would  reach  deep 
water  in  the  old  anchorage  in  Panama  Bay.  The  total  length  of 
this  canal  is  about  49  miles  from  deep  water  to  deep  water. 

These  are  brief  descriptions  of  the  two  canals.  The  Nicaragua 
Canal  from  the  ocean  to  the  river,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  San  Juan, 
is  practically  as  long  as  the  entire  Panama  Canal  from  ocean  to  ocean. 
The  difficulties  of  construction  at  Panama  have  been  revealed  by  the 
work  already  done. 

The  Nicaragua  route,  however,  has  one  advantage  which  has 
been  very  attractive  to  many  people  in  this  country.  The  west  end 
of  the  Nicaragua  canal  is  500  miles  nearer  San  Francisco  than 
Panama.  The  trouble  lies  in  the  fact  that  a  peninsula  extends  south 
about  200  miles  on  the  Isthmus  west  of  Panama;  Panama  is  in  about 
latitude  9°,  and  a  ship  going  through  the  canal  and  up  the  west 
coast  must  make  about  latitude  7°.  This  means  that  when  you  are 
through  the  Nicaragua  route  you  are  much  nearer  to  San  Francisco 
and  all  our  northern  Pacific  ports.  This  I  think  is  the  one  advan- 
tage which  Nicaragua  has  over  Panama  as  a  location  for  a  deep 
draught  canal.  But  against  this  there  are  several  things  which  will 
weigh  pretty  heavily.  The  east  end  of  the  Panama  Canal  is  nearer 
to  New  York  than  the  east  end  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal.  The  time 
required  to  pass  the  Panama  canal  is  about  12  hours.  The  time 
required  to  pass  through  the  Nicaragua  canal  is  estimated  at  33 
hours,  This  means  that  a  ship  entering  the  Panama  canal  in  the 
morning  can  pass  the  last  lock  before  dark,  and  pass  out  to  the 
Pacific  or  Atlantic  Ocean  as  the  case  may  be.  It  means  that  if  a 
ship  is  to  go  through  the  Nicaragua  canal,  entering  in  the  morning, 
she  must  spend  the  night  in  the  canal  and  if  she  does  not  wish 
to  run  at  night  she  must  spend  two  nights  there.  If  she  goes  through 
without  stopping,  even  with  a  slow  ship,  one-half  the  saving  in  time 
on  the  Pacific  is  lost.  If  she  lies  up  at  night,  all  that  advantage  is 
lost.  Beyond  that,  there  is  the  increased  risk  of  delays.  Throwing 
out  the  whole  of  Lake  Bahio,  the  actual  length  of  canal  navigation, 
not  including  the  broadened  harbors  at  Panama,  is  but  little  more 
than  30  miles  ;  at  Nicaragua  it  is  in  the  neighborhood  of  70.  The 
risks  of  delay  are  hard  to  estimate  ;  but  if  a  ship  grounds  in  a  narrow 
channel  or  anything  of  that  kind,  all  navigation  is  stopped  until  that 
ship  is  set  free.  That  would  increase  much  more  rapidly  than  the 
length  in  which  obstructions  would  occur,  because  not  only  would 
there  be  obstructions,  but  each  delay  would  affect  more  ships. 
Probably  the  danger  of  delays  would  be  four  times  as  much  at 
Nicaragua  as  at  Panama. 

There  is  also  a  difference  in  the  cost  of  maintenance,  which  as 
far  as  we  have  been  able  to  determine,  is  somewhat  more  than  a 
million  and  a  quarter  dollars  a  year, 


There  is  another  advantage  in  favor  of  Panama,  which  I  attach 
more  value  to,  perhaps,  than  other  people  do.  It  would  be  a  short 
strait  from  ocean  to  ocean,  without  any  unnecessary  complications 
with  countries  which  it  runs  through.  There  would  practically  be 
no  country;  one  end  is  almost  within  sight  of  the  other;  whereas, 
a  line  nearly  200  miles  through  the  center  of  a  country  which  would 
be  more  or  less  inhabited  for  the  whole  distance,  might  involve  local 
international  complications  which  it  would  be  well  to  avoid. 

There  is  also  the  question  of  protection.  The  canal  would  have 
to  be  protected,  not  defended  against  first  class  powers  or  fortified 
against  strong  nations,  but  it  must  be  defended  against  the  weak 
people  who  are  around  it.  The  trouble  will  be  more  in  the  nature 
of  police  than  fortifications.  At  Panama  a  force  can  be  brought  from 
any  point  on  the  line  of  the  canal  to  any  other  in  less  than  two 
hours;  probably  if  the  railroad  is  maintained  in  high  condition  in 
one  hour.  At  Nicaragua  unless  a  railroad  is  built  for  the  whole  dis- 
tance around  the  Lake,  which  has  not  been  contemplated,  it  will 
take  at  least  12  hours;  it  will  require  a  very  much  larger  force,  involv- 
ing very  much  greater  difficulties  in  policing. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  the  Panama  canal  is  to  be 
preferred.  They  are  not  all.  The  question  of  cost  is  a  very  import- 
ant one.  The  amount  required  to  finish  the  Panama  canal,  accord- 
ing to  the  estimates  of  the  Commission,  and  I  think  those  estimates 
are  ample,  is  about  140  million  dollars.  Of  that  a  considerable 
amount  can  be  deferred  until  after  the  opening  of  the  canal.  This 
estimate  includes  duplicate  locks  throughout,  and  it  includes  the 
deepening  of  the  harbor  channels  at  each  end;  this  must  be  done 
sooner  or  later,  but  the  present  channels  will  accommodate  a  very 
large  traffic  so  that  I  feel  that  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  canal  can 
be  opened  to  traffic  with  a  present  expenditure  of  somewhere  from 
110  to  120  million  dollars.  It  would  not  be  finished  but  it  would 
be  serviceable. 

The  Nicaragua  canal  has  been  estimated  on  precisely  the  same 
basis,  the  same  prices  for  everything,  the  same  percentage  for  con- 
tingencies, the  same  allowances,  it  being  determined  to  put  the 
canals  as  nearly  on  equal  bases  as  possible.  And  yet,  in  a  country 
uninhabited,  as  the  country  between  Greytown  and  the  San  Juan 
River  is,  where  all  laboring  population  must  be  brought  in,  where 
every  bit  of  country  must  be  cleared,  where  no  roads  are  possible 
because  it  is  such  a  swamp,  the  risk  of  actual  cost  overrunning  the 
estimates  is  considerably  more  than  in  the  open  country  at  Panama. 

The  work  done  at  Panama  by  the  old  French  company  was  of  a 
reckless  magnificence  which  has  probably  never  been  equaled  any- 
where. That  company  actually  raised  something  like  $240,000,000 
in  cash.  Perhaps  two-thirds  of  this  went  to  the  Isthmus.  Perhaps 
one-half  of  that  two-thirds  was  actually  expended  in  excavation  and 
work.  A  great  deal  of  it  went  into  machinery;  some  of  that 
machinery  is  in  good  order,  some  of  it  is  not.  But  those  of  you  who 
have  had  to  do  with  machinery  know  how  much  a  machine  is  worth 
which  is  20  years  old.  That  is  specially  true  of  excavating 
machinery  and  everything  of  that  kind.  You  had  better  throw  it 
away.  You  could  not  afford  to  take  it  as  a  gift  if  you  had  to  use  it. 

The  value,  however,  which  the  French  management  attached  to 
what  they  had  done  and  to  their  machinery,  their  manner  of  esti- 

10 


l( 


mating  it  and  their  method  of  avoiding  negotiations,  were  such  that 
the  Commission  felt  that  the  only  thing  it  could  do  was  to  tell 
them  to  go  home.  It  was  a  case  where  it  was  not  merely  a  question 
of  what  we  could  afford  to  give  for  the  work,  but  whether  the  United 
States  Government  could  afford  to  be  imposed  upon  by  foreigners? 
The  Commission  decided  that  it  could  not.  Now,  this  has  been 
entirely  changed.  Not  only  has  the  management  of  the  French 
company  been  entirely  changed,  but  it  has  submitted  an  offer  to 
accept  for  the  entire  plant  the  amount  which  the  Commission  has 
estimated  that  it  is  worth;  and  that  amount,  if  paid  for  the  Panama 
Canal,  will  be  an  absolute  fixed  payment  with  no  chance  for  uncer- 
tainty or  contingencies,  with  no  possibility  of  a  wrong  percentage  for 
uncertain  errors.  And-  it  has  accompanied  that  offer  with  legal 
documents  showing  that  it  can  pass  an  absolute  clean  title  to  our 
Government. 

That,  however,  would  not  enable  our  Government  to  build  the 
canal.  We  could  not  work  under  any  such  concession  as  the  French 
worked  under.  It  would  simply  clear  the  ground  so  that  we  could 
make  such  treaty  as  we  saw  fit. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  need  say  anything  more  on  the  merits  of 
the  two  lines.  The  only  advantage  that  I  can  see  in  Nicaragua,  and 
I  think  that  any  engineer  who  has  carefully  investigated  it  will  see, 
is  the  fact  that  the  west  end  is  nearer  to  San  Francisco  than  the  west 
end  of  the  Panama  Canal,  and  this  is  largely  neutralized  by  the  addi- 
tional time  required  to  pass  through  the  canal,  and  entirely  neutral- 
ized if  you  consider  the  additional  risk. 

There  are  some  things  about  distances  which  I  would  like  to 
call  your  attention  to.  They  are  easy  to  remember,  and  they  are 
very  suggestive.  We  all  measure  our  longitude  from  Greenwich  ; 
Greenwich  is  practically  London.  The  Mississippi  River,  as  marked 
by  St.  Louis,  Memphis  and  New  Orleans,  all  of  which  are  on  the 
same  meridian,  is  in  longitude  90°  west.  The  mouth  of  the  Ganges 
is  in  longitude  90°  east.  The  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  is  directly 
opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Ganges.  The  mouth  of  the  Mississippi 
is  almost  north  of  where  the  Isthmian  Canal  would  be.  The  mouth 
of  the  Ganges  is  a  long  way  east  of  the  Suez  Canal.  This  means 
that  very  little  business  can  be  expected  to  go  from  any  European 
ports  through  the  canal  across  the  American  Isthmus.  This  canal 
must  stand  on  its  own  merits.  It  must  be  a  canal  for  American 
traffic.  Furthermore,  our  Atlantic  ports  can  reach  Chinese  ports  by 
a  little  shorter  route  through  the  Suez  canal  than  across  the  American 
Isthmus.  Manila  is  about  equally  distant  by  both  routes.  Japan 
would  be  nearer  by  the  American  Isthmus, 

Another  thing:  A  great  circle  curve  drawn  from  the  terminus 
of  either  canal  to  San  Francisco  would  be  almost  entirely  on  land, 
it  would  pass  through  New  Mexico;  the  shortest  route  by  which  any 
vessel  could  go  from  the  terminus  of  either  canal  to  Japan  would 
take  them  so  near  to  San  Francisco  that  San  Francisco  would 
naturally  be  a  coaling  port.  The  distance  from  Panama  to  Yoka- 
homa,  by  way  of  San  Francisco,  is  less  than  by  way  of  Honolulu. 
San  Francisco,  furthermore,  is  the  one  port  on  the  west  coast  of 
America  which  is  nearest,  not  only  to  China  and  north  Asiatic  ports, 
but  to  Australia  and  New  Zealand.  There  are  some  curiosities  of 
this  kind  which  it  is  important  to  think  about. 


From  New  York  to  San  Francisco  is  5J44  miles  by  way  of  the 
Panama  Canal.  A  15-knot  ship  going  360  miles  a  day  would  make 
that  trip  in  about  15  days,  including  the  canal,  if  everything  was  all 
right;  from  Plymouth,  which  may  be  taken  as  a  sample  European 
port,  the  distance  is  7674  miles.  That  would  take  21  days  including 
the  canal,  probably  with  coaling,  etc.,  23.  The  opening  of  the  canal 
would  place  our  Pacific  coast  in  direct  communication  with  our 
Eastern  coast  and  with  Europe.  It  would  place  our  Eastern  coast 
and  the  Mississippi  Valley  in  direct  communication  with  the  West 
coast  of  South  America,  the  trade  of  which  is  now  held  in  European 
hands.  This  is  a  thing  to  which  little  attention  has  been  given,  but 
it  is  likely  to  prove  a  very  important  one.  But  after  all  I  know 
of  nothing  which  you  can  rely  on  less,  than  statistics  of  transporta- 
tion on  a  transportation  route  which  does  not  exist.  The  profits  and 
the  business  of  the  canal  must  be  the  results  of  conditions  which  that 
canal  will  create.  The  French  company  made  very  nice  calculations 
based  on  the  position  of  ships  all  over  the  world  for  several  years. 
But  the  real  fact  is  that  the  opening  of  this  canal  will  encourage 
certain  interests  on  our  West  coast  and  elsewhere,  which  cannot  fail. 
in  my  judgment,  to  change  many  lines  of  trade,  and  to  create  traffic 
which  does  not  now  exist.  If  it  were  only  to  be  the  traffic  which 
does  exist,  I  should  agree  with  Mr.  Ripley  and  doubt  the  expediency 
of  building  the  canal. 

There  are  two  other  things  which  should  be  referred  to.  We 
have  a  much  larger  merchant  marine  than  is  commonly  supposed. 
Our  navigation  laws  prevent  our  knowing  what  it  is.  No  ship  can 
sail  under  the  American  flag  unless  it  is  built  in  America;  and  the 
result  is  that  other  nations  are  getting  the  credit  of  shipping  which 
we  own.  The  International  Navigation  Company,  for  instance,  owns 
four  ships  which  sail  under  the  American  flag  between  New  York 
and  Southampton.  They  own  two  or  three  auxiliary  corporations, 
formed  under  English  and  Belgian  laws,  which  own  several  times  as 
many  ships  which  are  sailed  under  foreign  flags.  The  heaviest 
freight  carrying  line  now  sailing  out  of  New  York  is  owned  in  this 
country,  the  Atlantic  Transport  Line,  and  yet  it  has  not  a  single 
American  ship.  Possibly  our  navigation  laws  will  compel  a  continu- 
ance of  this  abnormal  condition.  But  whether  they  do  or  not,  we 
are  no  longer  out  of  the  carrying  trade.  We  are  performing  it 
secretly  under  other  flags,  and  our  ships  will  get  quite  as  much 
benefit  out  of  that  as  anybody,  and  we  soon  shall  have  as  many  as 
any  nation. 

Our  coasting  ships  under  our.  present  laws  can  attend  to  our 
east  coast  and  to  our  west  coast.  They  cannot  communicate  between 
the  two.  With  a  canal  they  can.  We  could  not  take  fleets  through 
a  canal  in  all  probability  in  times  of  war.  But  the  value  of  a  fleet  is 
not  so  much  to  fight  in  war,  as  to  prevent  the  occasion  of  war;  and  the 
exercise  and  duties  which  an  American  fleet  could  perform  with  the 
existence  of  a  canal,  the  change  of  stations  and  the  discipline  of 
squadrons  would  be  very  greatly  improved.  Our  fleets  would  be 
much  more  effective,  not  perhaps  in  fighting,  but  in  preventing  the 
necessity  of  fighting. 


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